6. VR-ED

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Posted
12/5/16

Virtual reality is no longer just for video gaming.

The technology’s explosive use and effectiveness in educational and training settings will become so pervasive in 2017 that a foundation will be laid to use VR learning models not only in higher education and advanced training settings, but in primary education.

The fast-evolving VR-ED trend is bolstered by a growing record of success in health care, security, science, technical skills and other training.

What’s emerging? A set of assets supporting VR-ED that appeals to educators, investors, political leaders, home-schooling advocates, property taxpayers who foot ever-increasing school-tax burdens and others.

The technology is proving cost-effective. It’s adaptable to different learning needs and environments. It’s far more accommodating of new teaching techniques and curriculum changes. And it can connect students with the most updated, effective teaching criteria from across the globe. Works for med students

If advanced medical students can learn to treat trauma patients in a simulated VR setting, helping sixth-graders learn math equations or world history shouldn’t be too challenging.

In fact, several new studies and testing models gained momentum in 2016. They’ll help shape the direction of VR-ED in lower grade settings.

Washington Leadership Academy, a Washington, D.C.-based charter school, is one such incubator for VR-ED in primary grades. A virtual-reality teaching curriculum is being tested in a variety of settings, including a VR-ED chemistry lab for ninth-graders.

This, and other examples, are emerging across the globe, taking the ideas of VR-ED from higher education and applying them to primary education.

The merging of Big Data and advances in chip technology have set the stage for an explosion of VR learning at all levels. With Big Data’s boundless ability to find and deliver facts, charts, videos, infographics, statistics, official records and virtually anything else digitally stored, computer programs can leverage that information to learn from it – and power VR programs.

TREND FORECAST:Dismantling public and other monolithic education systems in the US and globally is a task that moves at the speed of glaciers. But VR-ED breaks through in 2017 as a feasible, cost-effective, high-reward, low-risk approach to education.

The process of integrating VR-ED into aspects of traditional education is hot – and it’s beginning to happen. Further, as data show increasingly positive metrics on the use of VR-ED, a growing number of community, political and business leaders will become advocates. President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Department of Education secretary, Betsy DeVos, for example, is a strong advocate of home schooling, where VR-ED has strong potential and growing support.

While this trend continues to grow, it’s still in its infancy. And as new applications for VR technology emerge, investors will continue to profit. While uses now are most prevalent in specific skills training and higher-education areas, especially in medical arenas, the future of education on all levels – from kindergarten through doctoral studies – is virtual.

And it's hardly surprising; I mean, have you actually tried some of the current VR headsets? Jagged picture, motion lag, unresolved air circulation around the eyes... they feel more like head-ache and eye-sore generators than entertainment. Such issues will be resolved in time, but it will take more than 1 year. Remember that VR was supposed to be a big thing in the late 90s, but it failed badly.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

wbolze

Wayne Bolze

Your trend article on cancerous IPHONE use is correct on it's health effects. VR-ED: Do you want to strap a VR device on

your face for hours next to your precious EYEBALLS? I wear blue blocker eyeglasses and only talk on my IPHONE with the speaker ON or the car speaker when driving. (Safer and Healthier) The 21ST century has us microwaved,

Again, you run up against the teachers unions, who will never change a thing even though our educational system went Globally from # 1 to number #27!

There is so much to learn and so little time! You missed Gerald point. His point is that new technology provides fast and efficient means of educating everyone, whether VR or Internet or I Pads! But, if the teachers goal is to get fatter salaries and pension rather than truly move into new learning technology, then nothing will happen.

However, sooner or later, someone will create and evolve a "new technology" school, and will be able to "blow away" the old unionized school system, in the same way Amazon blew away the old Sears and Roebuck. Who ever pulls this off, and demonstrates this success on competitive testing basis, will be very, very rich and this can all be sold on a global basis. Ignorance is everywhere!